In the previous installment of Throwback Thursday, we flipped the calendar all the way back to 1977 and took a look at the Atari 2600. This week, we’re easing things up and bit and giving a shout out to the Sega Game Gear, circa 1991. From the get go, the Game Gear had its work cut out for it. Bulkier, slower and more than double the price of Nintendo’s Game Boy ($199 versus $90), the Game Gear never managed to steal Game Boy’s thunder as it was expected to do by Sega’s top brass. But thanks to a 3.2″ 160×144 32bit color display and a string of best sellers like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, and Aladdin, Sega did at least manage to make money off of the system until it pulled the plug… err, six batteries out of it in 1997.

In honor of E3 week, we thought we would dedicate this week’s Throwback Thursday to a gaming device from the past: the Atari 2600. The console that really brought in-home gaming to the masses and a gadget we have a real soft spot for, the 2600 was first launched in 1977. At the time it retailed for $199, which is roughly equivalent to $730 today. Despite the high cost, Atari managed to move over a 250,000 units in its first year. Although by today’s standards its 8-bit 1.19MHz processor and 128 bytes of RAM are absolutely ridiculous, the 2600 managed to keep generations entertained — thanks to insanely addictive titles such as Missile Command, Pitfall and Space Invaders (don’t get us started on that awful Pac-Man port). In spite of the fact that many of the people who revere it weren’t even alive when it was finally discontinued in 1992, the 2600 retains a huge cult following. What memories do you have of the Atari 2600?

BGR Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets of yesterday and yesteryear. More →

We realize we have now covered a Motorola product two out of two times, but we’re still in love with the old Motorola, and have one more up our sleeves for you… the Motorola Vader v8160. This little bugger came after the iconic StarTac and is as close to the miniature phone in Zoolander as we have gotten. The handset was a CDMA device available in the US on Verizon (I had the Bell Atlantic one) and Sprint. This was also one of the first phones to have decent WAP support, and I remember feverishly refreshing those horrible text-based menus looking at news, weather, stocks, and even movie times back then. So, come on… how many of you were rockin’ a Vader? Best phone ever or what?

Oh, Motorola. You’ve now been featured in two out of two of our Throwback Thursdays. Who remembers the TIMEX Beepware watch? A collaboration with Motorola, the Beepware pager watch had a monochrome display and weighed around 1.3 ounces. But that’s boring, the insane part was that it was a full-fledged one-way pager with service through Skytel. You could get weather updates through it, people could email you, and you could of course make use of an operator dispatched page if you signed up for that service. The watch was first made available in 1997.